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In 1915, US Mint Director Robert W. Woolley offered the chance to three famous sculptors, Adolph A Weinman, Albin Polasek and Herman A. MacNeil to organize designs for three silver coins. Exterior artists, not chief engraver Charles Barber, equipped designs for the earlier six modifications and Woolley felt this was a fantastic option. By 1916, Barber was seventy five years old but had a track report of being hostile to outside artists designing coins he thought he should be designing. With three new designs, all changing cash Barber himself had designed, it might have gotten unpleasant. The data recommend Barber was on his best behavior. In this case it appears he just stepped apart and let his assistant George T. Morgan, who had designed the Morgan dollar, do all of the work. Possibly Barber finally just gave up or was too old too combat anymore or simply recognized the wonder in the designs. Barber died in February 1917 and was changed by Morgan.

It is assumed that Woolley intended to award a special coin to each person. It could not have been deliberate this way, however Weinman ended up getting [two] of his designs as the successful designs. One being what would grow to be often called the Walking Liberty Half and the Mercury Dime. MacNeil won the design for the quarter with Polasek getting shut out.Adolph A. Weinman was born in Germany and got here to the US at the age of 10 in 1880. He was a scholar of well-known sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Saint-Gaudens can also be credited with some actually outstanding coin designs. By 1915 when the design course of began, Weinman was extensively celebrated as one of the nation’s greatest sculptors.

The design of the Mercury dime is that of a “Winged Liberty” and is predicated on a bust that Weinman did in 1913 of Elsie Kachel Stevens, wife of well-identified poet Wallace Stevens, who occurred to be tenants of a New York Metropolis condo constructing owned by Weinman. The winged cap was to symbolize freedom of thought. The reverse of the coin depicts the fasces, an ancient image of authority, with a battle-ax at the top to signify preparedness and an olive department beside it to suggest love and peace and authority. Production and launch of the new dimes was delayed till later in the 12 months of 1916 because the dies weren’t fairly ready. The Philadelphia and San Francisco mint produced Barber dimes a lot of 1916 to fulfill demand whereas Denver ceased producing Barber dimes in 1914. As soon as the dies were full, manufacturing began with both Philadelphia and San Francisco cranking out hundreds of thousands of dimes. Denver although produced a mere 264,000 making the 1916-D an immediate rarity.

Shortly after the dime began circulating, many people started calling it a “Mercury dime” because of the wings on the cap. Mercury is the Roman god of commerce, property and wealth as well as messenger to the opposite gods. The hat, referred to as a Petasus, is much like that worn my messengers during the time when Mercury was worshipped. Mercury gained his speed from his wings. Though not the original and intended name for the new time, the time period Mercury caught and that is what it is named today. The Mercury dime served People through [two] world wars ending its run in 1945. With the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945, there was a powerful movement to honor the president and in 1946 the Roosevelt dime began production and continues to be used today.

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